Sunday, March 05, 2006

Review: Spizza

Pizza parlours are catching on in Singapore. It seems like everywhere you go, you'll find one. Before there was Valentino though, or Pizza da Donato, there was Spizza.

Properly known as Spizza For Friends (that's pizzas, with the S in front), Spizza has outlets in Holland Village and Balmoral Plaza along Bukit Timah Road. I had lunch with Daniel at the Holland Village outlet the other day, the first time I'd been there despite living so near by.

As the tagline boasts, Spizza is a pretty good place for friends to come, as it's a small and cozy establishment that probably won't cost you an arm and a leg to enjoy. As you can see from all the pizza boxes, Spizza clearly also does takeaway. Not sure about delivery though.

We had an order of bruschetta ($8) while waiting for out pizzas to arrive. It's usually quite difficult to find decent bruschetta, so I was surprised that these were actually rather nice. The tomato concasse was succulent, and the bread was toasted just right - soft enough to have bite, but firm enough that it wasn't soggy.

Now on to the main event. All pizzas come at a standard price - $16 for medium and $19 for large. The first pizza we had was a porcini mushroom and ham affair, which I really enjoyed. Porcinis really are the king of mushrooms; just the small amount we had infused the entire pizza and the mozarella with their beautiful aroma, and the pizza was just a delight to eat. The crust too, was surprisingly thin and crispy, without the additional floury texture you sometimes get when chefs dust their dough with flour.

Our second pizza came with parma ham and rucola leaves, but wasn't as good. The parma ham was placed cross-wise instead of lengthwise, giving the illusion that you're getting more than you really are. It was also pretty tough and stringy, and the rucola was somewhat limp. As Daniel noticed, the pizzas tended to be a bit inconsistent, with noticeable variations in pizza quality within the span of an hour or so.

Being located in Holland Village is most convenient, and Spizza is often the venue of choice for the young and trendy crowd that Holland Village attracts, and it's always nice to think young and feel young.

Service is generally acceptable, though the pizzas could have arrived a bit more promptly. Ambience was fine too, though there was an odd smell at one point in time, like there was a gas leak or something. This is understandably disconcerting as they have a live-fire pizza oven.